Fluid conduits or tubes for carrying pressurized fluids (e.g., Freon) are used in many automotive, household appliances and machine tool applications. These conduits or tubes must be capable of being disconnected in order to allow for repair or replacement of components of the system. In order to facilitate initial connection and subsequent disconnection, there has been developed a class of quick-connect fittings or tube coupling devices as exemplified by the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,359 issued Oct. 25, 1977 to Irvin E. McWethy for "QUICK-CONNECT TUBULAR COUPLINGS."
While the quick-connect tubular couplings have been a great success and are widely used, prior art tools to facilitate disconnection of the couplings have been costly, difficult to use, and fail to separate a pair of tubes after they have been uncoupled from each other.
Frequently, due to corrosion, dirt and the like, a pair of tubes will not easily separate once they have been uncoupled. Prior art tools have failed to address this problem. While they provide a means for uncoupling the quick-connect tubular couplings described in the patent mentioned above, they fail to provide any mechanical means for separating the uncoupled pair of tubes. Instead, the burden is placed upon the automotive technician or repair person to use their own manual strength to pull apart and separate the pair of tubes. In some cases, it is virtually impossible to separate the pair of tubes. Accordingly, it may become necessary to use a torch to heat the pair of tubes in order to separate them. This can often times lead to permanent damage to the coupling or the tubes, thus necessitating their replacement.
The present invention overcomes these and other drawbacks of prior art release tools, and provides a release tool to quickly, easily and efficiently uncouple and separate a pair of tubes connected by a tubular coupling having a spring lock.